Parents exhorted to vaccinate children with PCV
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, June 21 2021: State Health Society, NHM and Directorate of Family Welfare Services jointly conducted a media sensitization programme on Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV) at the conference hall of Family Welfare Services, BT Road here on Monday.

Speaking at the event, State Immunization officer Dr T Manihar informed that PCV is administered to babies below two years of age so as to prevent from pneumococcal pneumonia, meningitis, ears and bloodstream infection.

For Manipur, PCV vaccination was launched on June 7.Even though cost of the vaccine is high in the market, the government of India has been facilitating PCV vaccination of the children free of cost, he said.

Informing that the vaccine was launched in the USA in 2000 and in 2017 in India, Manihar continued that earlier the vaccine was made available in India with a higher price tag but the same could be availed at healthcare centres free of cost now.

Children below two years of age should be given three doses of PCV with the first administered when the baby is six weeks old and the second dose at 14 followed by the booster given when the baby reaches nine months, he explained.

Manihar further said that those children who have been given the first dose in private sector hospital could get the second dose of the vaccine free of cost from government hospitals.

However, vaccination in government sector will only follow the time chart for vaccinating the babies.

Assuring that the vaccine is safe for children, he continued that the previous after effects of vaccination such fever and pain have been significantly reduced.

As such, parents should timely vaccinate their children with PCV so as to protect them from several illnesses, he stressed.

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